Ban on smoking at hospitals must also apply outdoors, insists health boss

All NHS hospitals should put a blanket ban on smoking in their grounds, the head of Public Health England has said.

A number of trusts have introduced a total ban, but others have not, or failed to enforce the bans when patients, visitors or staff smoke outside hospital doors. Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England (PHE), a government agency, said he wanted “a tobacco-free NHS”.

He told Health Service Journal: “I would like to see every hospital tobacco-free. I don’t just mean you can stand at the front door of the hospital, I mean tobacco-free.”

Deborah Arnott, the chief executive of the charity Ash, backed the ban saying: “Hospitals exist to protect and improve health which can be undermined by allowing smoking on the premises.” However, Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said: “Hospitals can be stressful places for patients, visitors and staff. Smoking is a comfort to many people. The NHS needs to recognise this and show a bit of compassion.”

One NHS hospital trust chief executive told Health Service Journal: “At 7am yesterday I walked into the main entrance – just outside was a group of four middle-aged people crying, holding each other and smoking. I considered remonstrating with them, but thought, on balance, they had probably had a bad enough night already.”

A spokesman for PHE said enforcing bans were a matter for local trusts.